The benefits of Bling

I have a secret.  I am NOT a girly-girl.  I'm a really simple chick.  A jeans and flip-flops kind of girl.  If you were to see me out, I'd be barefaced, hair up in a claw clip and the only "accessory" I'd be sporting (aside from my impossibly cute kids) would be my wedding ring.

So, when I'm making cards, I can bang 'em out when I'm following the patterns in my Make It From Your Heart booklet.  (Another reason I love CTMH - they put their how-to patterns in the easiest format to follow!)  But once the pattern is complete, I feel like something is missing.  The cards need bling.

Embellishments, to be exact.

Take this card, for example.  

I made this card for my mom and step-dad.  That lucky couple is getting to live out their dream retirement right now.  They bought a travel RV and meandered across this great nation of ours as they packed up their house in the Frozen North and moved down to the desert of Nevada.  This is an exact copy of the pattern I used from our Make It From Your Heart how-to booklet.  And while it is adorable, it feels unfinished to me. 

I like simple, but I like refined simple.  I want the recipients of my cards to feel like I really put thought and effort into personalizing the hand made cards I give them.  I won't give a card that doesn't feel "finished" to me.

So taking the basic card above, I just added a few simple pieces to make it feel more finished.  I added the Twilight cardstock under the sentiments and edged all the pieces in Chocolate ink.  Then, I stamped the RV image on two pieces of patterned paper, cut them out and adhered them over the original stamped image (a technique called "paper piecing").  As a final touch, I added Chocolate pearls (now-retired) to the upper left corner of the card and also over the wheel of the RV. 

It doesn't scream "overly embellished" to me, but those few small, simple touches take it up the few notches it needed to feel complete. 

National Scrapbooking Month

My creative time is exceptionally precious these days.  I have two months to go in my final pregnancy (which makes me a little sad to admit) and I have a very active two-year-old who wants to "help" me when I sit down to create.

Today is a gorgeous day outside.  It's sunny and cool with a slight breeze - the perfect day for an 8 month pregnant lady to spend outside without getting too over-heated.  So I decided to spend the morning running his little tail ragged outside so he would take a good nap and I could get some creative time in.  Well I did such a good job, I got to make this card in under 30 minutes - while he was watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

I am SO proud of this card!!!  I love how bright and cheerful it is, I love how quickly it came together and I LOVE how it makes me smile just looking at it. 

I can't get enough of the National Scrapbooking Promo - Free To Be Me.  The B&T papers are so happy and I love that all the cardstock pieces are embossed on one side!  I love the dimension embossed papers make to the finished product.

The pattern is from Make it from the Heart #1, our new Durables Triangle Studs, and the sentiment is stamped from our Give a Lift stamp set.

See how bright these papers are???  Make sure you get yours by May 31st by placing your qualifying order of at least $50.

A Perfect Day

Today I registered my oldest son for Sixth Grade.  My baby is now officially a Middle School-er.  I always get nostalgic at the start of each school year - he starts school in a week and a half.  I realize that we're riding the downward summer slope toward fall and colder weather.  And while I always get excited about all the fun activities and holidays that the end of the year brings, there is something that's pretty sad about the ending of summer.  I love the L-O-N-G days that we get in summer.  I love being able to watch my kids playing outside at 8:30 at night in the warm summer evenings, catching frogs and fireflies.  I love being able to take the baby on a neighborhood walk and show him all the evening creatures that come out to play.

I was asked to create the following card for the friend of a family member who loves the beach.  When I saw this lighthouse stamp, I didn't see a warm summer day playing in the surf.  I saw a summer sunset full of lingering memories.

I can't tell you how much I love how this lighthouse card turned out!

I used the card pattern from our Make It From the Heart how to program.  If you don't have this great booklet, you need to get it!  It's a 48 page booklet FULL of scrapbooking layouts and card patterns (with all the dimensions given).  These days my creative time is short and therefore even more precious to me.  Having go-to patterns and layouts really helps me maximize my time.

The first thing I did was stamp and emboss the lighthouse.  Then I stamped it out on Post-it notes so I could cut out around the stamp and layer the ink on the cardstock without ruining the lighthouse.  I started from the bottom of the lighthouse and layered the warmer inks - you can really choose any shades you want, I stuck with pink and peach toned inks.  The best thing to do (I've found) is to start with the lightest shade and finish with the darkest shade.  You don't have to clean your brayer between inks, which makes the blending process easier.  But when you switch colors or if you go from darker to lighter, you really need to clean your brayer (I just clean the ink off with a baby wipe).  Then when I was happy with the way the bottom of the sunset looked, I flipped the cardstock, cleaned off the brayer and layered the cooler shades.  To finish off the lighthouse, I used our blending pen and colored in the top of the lighthouse, the roofs of the keepers buildings and the grass/stone.  The blending pen really is great for coloring if you don't have the markers.  Then I used the pink and the yellow B&T papers from our retired Mayberry paper pack to frame the picture.

I love how warm and soft the finished card is.  Not that I've ever been, but this is sort of how I imagine a Maine sunset would look behind a lighthouse. 

I've entered this card in the H2H Water, Water, Water Challenge, Happy Campers Challenge #20 - Summer and Dream it Up's Summertime, Sparklers and S'mores Challenge.

Words of Comfort

Last weekend, one of my crop sisters had to lay her mother to rest.  Even when it's expected and necessary to ease suffering (as it was in this case), it's still devastating to those left behind.

I went to my stash to get a card to send her to let her know I was thinking about her.  (Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to the visitation.)  Several years ago, the group of girls I started scrapbooking with, created a card swap dinner.  We'd get together on a regular basis and pick different themes for each swap.  I just hoarded the cards, so I was certain I had something perfect in my stash to send to her.  (We haven't done this in a while and I REALLY miss it!)

I mean, look at all those cards!  Every one of them is handmade with love and - nothing.  Not a single condolence card in the bunch - not even a "Thinking of you".  What's a girl to do??  Make one!   So I went into my other stash and pulled out all my stamps!  Luckily, I'm a card maker and I have dozens of sentiments.

Here's what an uninterrupted hour of baby-free time looks like:

I just love how this card turned out!!  

These days, whenever I'm making a card, the first thing I do is pull out our Make It From Your Heart how-to program. It's a 40-ish page booklet CHOCK FULL of patterns - complete with cutting instructions!  From a design aspect, I love having pre-determined patterns when I'm crunched for time.  It really helps me make the most of my creative time.  And I love that it's small enough to slide into my bag when it's time to get together with my girls and crop!

I used the B&T papers from our retired Moonlight paper pack.  It's Halloween-themed, but I think the muted Slate and Smokey Plum colors were just perfect for this card.  I wanted to keep the card simple so I pulled a few techniques out of my bag of tricks.

One of my all-time favorite stamps is Treasure Life.  It's a long-retired stamp set, but between the floral images and the sentiments, it is one of the most useful stamps that I own.  I used it to stamp the background image on the card.  For the stamped background image, I used Second-Generation Stamping.  If you've never done it before, Second-Generation Stamping is where you load up your stamp with ink - get it good and juicy - and you stamp the image on the paper.  Then, you reposition it and stamp it again on a different spot.  This gives you a lighter stamped image and I think it also adds some interesting dimension to the card.  (You can see above, it looks like there are floral stalks behind the darker stamped image.)  I also embossed the three floral stalks in the front.  For the sentiment on the front of the card, I used our Words of Comfort stamp set, which I corner-rounded on opposite corners.  Before I embellished the card, I edged the two B&T pieces and the sentiment with Slate ink and edged the two Smokey Plum cardstock pieces with Smokey Plum ink.  Then I finished off the card by embellishing it with our retired Colonial White Grosgrain Ribbon, Licorice Opaques and a Filigree Charm.  I used Liquid Glass to glue the Opaque and the Charm to the Ribbon and then the Ribbon to the card.  My regular ATG usually doesn't fail me, but I wanted to make sure it all stuck well.  The only thing about Liquid Glass is that you have to let it dry for a long time before touching or moving it.  I usually let my projects set for 24 hours to be on the safe side. 

I hope you like the card as much as I do. 

Make It From Your Heart Buzz and Bumble Thank You card

I've been commissioned by my husband's mother to make a box of cards for her friend's retirement party.  I did this for her birthday earlier this year, and she really appreciated it.  She called me on Sunday and asked me if I could have this ready for her before Saturday.  As in this Saturday.  Three days from now.  I told her it could be done.  And it can, as long as my boys cooperate.  This has been a busy week for us and I've had family business to take care of up until today, so I've been slowly working on this card. 

I used our new Buzz and Bumble paper pack to make this card.  I edged all the papers in Cocoa Ink to give it more dimension without the added weight of more paper.  The flower on the sentiment is from the Buzz and Bumble Assortment Pack.  I stamped the sentiment with our A Little Thanks stamp set.  The sentiment I edged in Goldrush Ink and Cocoa Ink to help make it pop.

Knowing that I have three days to get a box of cards (and the box itself) designed and created, would normally turn me into a frantic mess.  But Close To My Heart has the perfect solution for this.  They have this wonderful 48 page booklet called Make It From Your Heart.  They've created exclusive card (and scrapbooking) patterns and included dimensions and completed examples of each project.  And that's where I got the pattern for this card.

This is a Must-Have booklet to keep with your paper crafting supplies.  The pre-designed patterns make creating so much more of a breeze.  And it makes keeping my commitment less stressful.  I bought this booklet because I have a little one at home.  He makes it impossible to spend hours online scouring websites and blogs looking for card patterns.  You can order yours here today to maximize your scrapbooking and card making time!

I already have the next pattern, stamp and paper pack picked out for the next card.  Come back tomorrow to see it.